We didn’t know if our CTD would float on the brine—or get stuck in it. But we had to try. Brine pools are underwater lakes so dense and salty that almost nothing can survive inside them. By carefully lowering our CTD—an instrument that measures conductivity, temperature, and depth—into a newly discovered brine pool in the Red Sea, we’re exploring one of Earth’s most extreme environments. Each test pushes the boundaries of what we know, turning exploration into insight. Because understanding how